150 killed in battle for Yemen’s Hodeida as global alarm grows
Compiled from Dispatches
At least 150 people have been killed in 24 hours of clashes in Yemen’s Hodeida, medics and military sources said Monday, as international pressure mounted for a ceasefire in the vital port city.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen has pushed a renewed offensive to capture the strategic port city of Hodeida despite warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
“If the port at Hodeida is destroyed, that could create an absolutely catastrophic situation,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned.
“The fighting must stop, a political debate must begin, and we must prepare a massive humanitarian response to avoid the worst next year,” he said.
The coalition forces, led on the ground by Emirati-backed troops, have made their way into Hodeida after 11 days of clashes, reaching residential neighborhoods in the east on Sunday and sparking fears of street fights that would further endanger civilians trapped in the city.
Nearly 600 people have been killed since clashes erupted in Hodeida on November 1, ending a temporary suspension in the offensive to take the city that began in June.
The Red Sea port’s docks are a lifeline to 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation.
‘State of fear’
Mariam Aldogani, Save the Children’s field coordinator in Yemen, said that the people in Hodeida are living in a “state of fear”.
“There is ongoing fighting, and the situation is very bad,” she told AFP over the weekend by phone, as strikes were heard in the background.
The Hodeida offensive has sparked international outcry unprecedented in nearly four years of war.
The Saudi-led coalition has been pounding the impoverished country since March 2015 to restore former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Saudis and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
‘Incalculable human cost’
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday urged Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a major ally of Washington, to engage in peace talks.
British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt also met Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in Riyadh on Monday on a visit to press for an end to the war in Yemen.
Both the US and Britain are major suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia.
“The human cost of war in Yemen is incalculable: with millions displaced, famine and disease rife and years of bloodshed, the only solution is now a political decision to set aside arms and pursue peace,” Hunt said in a statement ahead of the trip.
Opposition politicians in Britain and human rights groups have called on the British government to cease arms sales to Saudi Arabia due to the high civilian death toll in air raids by the coalition.
The government has said the arms sales earn Britain billions of pounds and guarantee jobs in the industry, and its response to the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killing must bear this in mind.
The coalition has come under intense international pressure to end the conflict in Yemen, particularly following the killing of the journalist, an ardent critic of Prince Mohammed, who has spearheaded the kingdom’s controversial role in the Yemen war.
Multiple countries, including Germany and Norway, have announced the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi’s killing.
The US on Saturday announced it would end its inflight refueling support for the alliance.
The coalition has been blacklisted by the United Nations for the killing and maiming of children, particularly in air raids on Yemen.
The alliance accuses Iran of smuggling arms to the Houthis through Hodeida port. Tehran denies the charges.
The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 civilians have been killed in the Yemen war since 2015.
But rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high.
AFP and Reuters contributed to the story.